The present invention relates to a system of handling cotton, which is loaded and transported to a gin and an apparatus therefore.
It has long been a problem in the related art to prevent cotton modules from absorbing moisture from the ground on which cotton modules are traditionally positioned for storage prior to their transportation to a cotton gin or prior to feeding into gin machines. The season of cotton harvesting is rather a short one and it is every farmer's goal to harvest as much cotton as possible at the time when inclement weather may prevent timely harvesting and transportation of cotton to a gin, wherein it can be processed. At the present time, the harvested cotton is compacted into modules by special equipment, module builders, with the modules being subsequently loaded onto a truck or a tractor trailer and transported to a gin. However, once at the gin, the cotton has to be unloaded and stored, since the gin operation may not permit processing of the delivered cotton modules just at that time. Since the modules are traditionally stored on the ground, there is always present a danger of the modules absorbing water, or other moisture from the ground, thereby substantially reducing the quality of the cotton and, therefore, its price.
Storing of the delivered cotton in a truck with a moving bed also becomes impractical, since the time for transporting the cotton from the field to a gin is very limited and the cost of operating of the special equipment prohibits usage of that truck for storage purposes.
Additionally, the gin machines have always been a major problem for a gin owner, since they often require maintenance and even repairs during the crucial time of cotton harvesting. When this occurs, the gin operation has to stop, which means additional storage time for the cotton without being processed.
All of these problems led to the development of the present invention which contemplates provision of a new cotton handling system to eliminate drawbacks of the prior art.